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On Fri, 17 May 2002, 90 wrote:
> >The Astronauts played Jazzmasters right? All three guys?
>
> I might be mistaken, but I reckon I've seen a picture of them with Jaguars.
> Well, at least one of the guitarists had one.
Yeah, I think they switched among the two, but every picture I've seen of
them had them playing some mix of the two guitars, and I forget who played
what. I find that a Strat isn't very good for the Astronauts sound. I
have very little experience with Jags, but my Jazzmaster can achieve that
sound quite easily. The Strat's tone is a bit too sharp and direct, and
doesn't have that particular fat quality that's required to get a nice,
big, juicy, reverbed and muted note. In addition, I think an important
factor in the sound is the combination of the bridge and neck pickups,
which you can't get on a Strat unless you modify it. I set my reverb
unit to about 6-6-6 (Satan!!), with maybe the mix up to 7 sometimes, and
turn the treble on the amp up a bit, cause the reverb 'drip' is in the
treble frequencies. Voila!! Oh, heavy flatwound strings are a must to
achieve the tone. I would use at least 12-52, though I know that Evan
Foster of the Boss Martians (when they were still a surf band) would go
for 13-56 sometimes (ouch!). Hope that helps. Astronauts rule!
Ivan
